Make Your Own Gift Bags

Make these following the instructions below.

Ingredients above: One free thick paged catalogue,one glue stick and a thick book.

Tear out three pages and glue the overlapping edges as above.

 Have around an inch or 2cms overlap.

Now lay your book in the middle with the top of the book at the top of the middle page, wrap it up like a present, glueing the side edges having cut off excess paper. Leave the top end open. Fold in the base as below:

Above is what the base looks like when you've folded the paper round the book.

Glue the edges. Actually I reinforced this triangular end with some clear sellotope.

To make the two handles tear out another two pages, one for each handle.
With the long straight edge next to you fold the page inwards by around an inch (2 cms) and fold again, four times to make a thick handle as pictured above. Cut and glue. (You'll have about a third of the page unused.)

Fold the strip in half to see the centre then fold again twice at the same distance from the centre, as above. Glue around half of the length of the handle to the carrier bag. Same on both sides and the other handle matching at the back. Done.

Don't carry anything breakable in these bags. I haven't tested how much weight they'd bear but I guess it's not a lot! They are fun to make and will be useful in the shop. I'm hoping to make enough so I don't have to buy in paper carriers.
If you feel like making bags with me I'll do a free workshop on them tomorrow, Tuesday, at the shop from 11am to 12 noon.